Each of the “Big Four” fashion capitals exudes a very particular mood, from Milan’s extravagance and sex appeal to Paris’s refined craftsmanship. And when it comes to London, it’s all about fearless imagination, with designers who specialise in tongue-in-cheek rebellion, outrageous displays and the blurring of the lines between art and commerce. Or so the common narrative goes. Of course, none of these cities – which host innumerable designers during their twice-yearly fashion week stints – fit neatly into the categories ascribed to them; the reality is much more sprawling. However, there does seem to be something playful and daring about London’s fashion history. From the Swinging Sixties, typified by Mary Quant, Ossie Clark and Barbara Hulanicki’s Biba, through to Vivienne Westwood’s punk provocations and Alexander McQueen’s dark and dramatic visions, London has a long legacy of producing extraordinary design. It also has the youngest fashion week among its style city brethren, only officially starting some 35 years ago.
Various people have laid claim to setting the groundwork for LFW, including fashion PR Percy Savage. A gregarious figure who’d previously helped elevate the profiles of Lanvin and Yves Saint Laurent in Paris before moving to London in 1974, the Australian-born Savage staged his first London show, “The New Wave”, at The Ritz , which he soon followed with the “London Collections”, featuring designers such as Zandra Rhodes and Bruce Oldfield, with Princess Margaret and Bianca Jagger front row.
However, it was in the following decade that London Fashion Week as we know it today was born, with the creation of the British Fashion Council (BFC) in 1983, followed by the first official London Fashion Week in 1984. That same year saw the inaugural Designer of the Year award. The accolade was won by Katharine Hamnett, who later caused a stir during her infamous meeting with Margaret Thatcher when she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the anti-nuclear message “58% Don’t Want Pershing”. Hamnett got the result she wanted with Thatcher apparently squawking like a chicken and photographers capturing the moment.
The first location for LFW was a car park. The Commonwealth Institute’s car park in Kensington, to be precise. Over the rest of the 1980s both this venue and Kensington Olympia would host designers from Ghost, to Betty Jackson, to Jasper Conran, to a young John Galliano (Kate Moss making her catwalk debut aged 15 at his 1989 show). London’s fashion scene at that time was hugely influenced by clubs, counterculture and forward-thinking design. Cult labels like BodyMap, with its distinctive shapes and use of diverse models, paved the way for much-needed changes in the industry, which even today some brands have been slow to instate. The establishment, however, embraced the scene, with Princess Diana holding a reception for various designers at Lancaster House in 1985, and often wearing British designers both at home and abroad.
The 1990s proved to be a tricky decade for London Fashion Week. Economic downturn and waning interest saw the event reduced to a small number of designers showing at The Ritz in 1992. However, it was also a time that facilitated the emergence of names including Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney, who put on their first shows in 1992 and 1995 respectively. For the latter, hers was unlike any normal graduate collection, with McCartney enlisting supermodel friends Kate Moss, Yasmin Le Bon and Naomi Campbell to walk for her.
In 1993 Campbell also featured in a particularly memorable LFW moment when she took to the catwalk topless for Philip Treacy. It was the same year that, across the Channel, she tumbled over in British export Vivienne Westwood’s vertiginous blue platforms. 1993 also saw the establishment of the BFC’s NEWGEN scheme, supporting and nurturing emerging designers. Then in 1994 it was time for another venue change, with most of the shows moving to the grounds of the Natural History Museum. And even though London lost some of its key talents – McQueen heading off to New York in the late 1990s and various others headhunted by French design houses in the early 2000s – plenty more brands flourished, including Matthew Williamson, John Rocha and Julien Macdonald, who was one of several designers to capitalise on the public’s love of the Spice Girls by sending Mel B sashaying down his catwalk in glittering pink in 1999.
With the arrival of a new millennium, Hussein Chalayan – already well-loved for his avant-garde approach to cladding the body – put on a show in which the background furniture was transformed into wearable attire. It culminated in the incredible sight of a model stepping into the centre of a coffee table that then concertinaed up into a triangular skirt. And, like those concentric rings of wood expanding upwards, the following decade marked an expansive and exciting time for new designers. From Christopher Kane’s neon-bright debut and Gareth Pugh’s gothic, angular garments to a whole host of other new names including Jonathan Saunders, Erdem Moralioglu, Mary Katrantzou and Roksanda Ilincic, London’s upcoming generation of talented garment makers secured its reputation afresh.
And to top it all, in 2009 heritage brand Burberry returned from Milan to home soil, live-streaming its show to an eager online audience the following February. Other designers returning to London in 2009 included Matthew Williamson, Paul Smith and Luella, and it was also the first year that Somerset House hosted LFW, with shows among its handsome buildings and heels clacking over its courtyard cobbles. The move coincided with the rise of street style, with a handful of roving photographers quickly becoming an ever-expanding gaggle over the following years.
LFW has had two more venue changes since then: first a short stint at another car park, this time in Soho’s Brewer Street, before settling at The Store Studios on The Strand. However, in line with other fashion capitals, in recent years more and more shows have taken place off-site, with venues ranging from Tate Modern to the Royal Courts of Justice, to custom sites like Burberry’s Makers House in 2016. And London’s prodigious talent continues to flourish, with Molly Goddard’s tulle and shirring, Matty Bovan’s imaginative flights and Wales Bonner’s intelligent tailoring among the current crop of designers making sure LFW remains a fresh experience every year.
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